𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚎 𝚋𝚎? {𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚎 𝙳𝚊𝚕𝚝𝚘𝚗}

'ᴀ ᴄᴏɴɢᴏ,

As the night raged on, Neil flushed out a flashlight. He started telling a story that I had heard a hundred times already. The atmosphere was dark and quiet, he picked the perfect time to creep everyone out by his retelling.

"It was a dark and rainy night, and this old lady, who had a passion for jigsaw puzzles, sat by herself in her house at her table to complete a new jigsaw puzzle." He scanned each face. Neil was great at masking his emotions, which made him great at reading other people. He was terrifyingly good at it.

"But as she pieced the puzzle together, she realized, to her astonishment, that the image that was formed was her very own room." He continued, his eyes kept flitting over to Todd. "And the figure in the center of the puzzle, as she completed it, was herself."

As great as he was at judging how others felt, Todd was evenly mastered in hiding his emotions. Neil would have loved to figure him out, like the puzzle he was talking about. However, I knew my brother enough to know he'd only be intrigued by the mystery of it. He wouldn't truly care about Todd if he considered him a puzzle.

Todd seemed to be aware of this, he made it a point to express himself more freely around Neil. Letting him in enough to know him for who he is, not who he could be. He nodded whenever Neil looked at him and talked through his eyes along with the story.

Neil finished the story with elaborate pauses, "And with trembling hands, she placed the last four pieces and stared in horror at the face of a demented madman at the window." Another pause. "The last thing that this old lady ever heard was the sound of breaking glass."

"Ohhh..." The boys feigned mock terror, albeit being unnerved.

"This is true, this is true." Neil nodded to everyone and placed himself between me and Todd. They smiled at each other, and then looked away – too afraid of getting caught up in the moment. Neil turned to me instead.

"I saw you and Cameron looking cosy." He nudged me with his elbow. "Give me the details, Dells."

"We were just talking," I replied, scooching away. I wanted to correct him, but how could I? It's not like I can just say 'oh no your other best friend likes me.'

And you like him, an annoying little voice perked up inside my head.

"Just talking, sure." He laughed, and I instantly felt at ease. "Deny, deny, deny. I thought we were past that, but alright, I'll bite."

"Right, as if you're going around confessing your feelings." I looked at Todd pointedly, who was pretending not to hear us.

Neil squinted at me and grabbed my face to throw me off. I only laughed as the boys stared at us in shock. They weren't used to Neil being so carefree, it was a sight that was rare even for me. He caught me by the hair and pulled me in for a side hug that was a little too tight. A fair warning, I thought.

He had a habit of making things look casual when he knew it was the opposite. His actions were enough for me to know how much he really liked Todd.

"I've got one that's even better than that," Cameron spoke up. His eyes were glued to mine as if he was trying to get all other eyes away from me. I sat up straight, this was the first time he decided to speak with the group tonight.

Charlie guffawed in the background, but Cameron was unfazed.

"I do," He started. "There's a young, married couple, and they're driving through the forest at night on a long trip. And they run out of gas, and there's a madman on the--"

It was a common folk tale. I heard it when I was 7, at a sleepover. I pretended to be interested in the story. Sure enough, some glances were exchanged between the boys. They all knew the story, but nobody had the heart to stop him - he was so eager.